Report shows uptick in Iraq violence since January

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq has seen an uptick in violence since January, including high-profile suicide and car bomb attacks, partly as a result of recent U.S.-led offensives against Islamist militants, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Despite the uptick, Iraq continues to see a sharp overall decline in violence as a result of several factors including last year's build-up of U.S. forces, the U.S. Defense Department said in its latest quarterly report on the war.

Since June, when the last combat brigade in President George W. Bush's so-called surge strategy arrived in Iraq, deaths from sectarian violence have fallen 94 percent, the report said. Total civilian deaths were down 72 percent over the same period.

"Key indicators are at levels last seen consistently in mid-2005, with indirect fire attacks at levels not seen since early 2004," the report said.

But the Pentagon also reported a rise in security incidents since January in Nineveh and Diyala provinces and other areas where al Qaeda in Iraq militants have flocked since being driven from former strongholds by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen.

The report described the increased violence as a "short term" result of military operations against insurgents that began in January.

Defense officials could not say how closely the violence sparked by the offensives was related to a rise in high-profile bombings, calculated to inflict mass casualties.

"In January 2008, high-profile attacks rose for the first time in five months as a result of a slight increase in person-borne IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and a slight increase in vehicle-borne IED's," the report said.